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Here are a couple pictures from my weekend at my parents’ place:

All the girls ready to go out for the night. Note to self: hang out with people closer to my size so I don't look so huge.

Grandma gave James a pickle. He liked it!

This weekend Ryan’s parents & sister came up. We all went to the zoo today, and it was a lot of fun.

My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades. (He tried to eat them shortly after this photo was taken, so we aren't applying to Harvard just yet)

Polar bear. Duh.

What you can't see is that he is reaching for the camera. He's trying to eat it, along with everything else he can get his hands on.

Helping Auntie feed the goats (not really; he's just pretending).

We tried to tell him it was rude to chew on the giraffe's face while we were at the zoo, but he didn't care.

Another development this weekend: we now have (1 or 2) consonants. We’ve for sure heard the “d” sound. I never realized how excited I would get about someone making consonant sounds. It’s kind of ridiculous. But awesome.

Hope you all had a great weekend. It finally cooled off a little here (the high today was in the low 70s). I’m loving it.

I will have more of an update later, after I’m done with work, laundry, filling out passport paperwork (we NEED to get that done!), and catching up on my sleep. For now, let’s say that the weekend was FABULOUS. The bachelorette party was great; there were jello shots, inflatable dolls named Brenda and Steve, and a “public nuisance” ticket involved. Too bad about the ticket, but really it helps describe the evening quite well. The rest of the weekend was awesome, too. We got to see all of my grandparents, and James had a pickle. It was very exciting.

Back to work. Too bad I can’t close my eyes for just a second here…

James and I attended the baby shower of a good friend of ours this past Saturday, and it was so much fun. Her family seems really nice, and it was fun to see all the little baby stuff. We all decorated onesies; that baby will have plenty of those for a while. :) James was a big hit, of course. He was his smiley, charming self. And he’s at such a fun age – he’s interactive in that he looks at you and smiles and laughs and plays. But he’s not mobile yet, so he isn’t as much work to look after.

There was another baby there that was 3 months old. He was a cutie too. It’s weird to think that was how James was just a couple months ago; kind of floppy and little and not so interested in whatever else is going on. The other little boy’s mom described time as a mother as passing quickly, but when you think back on things since he was born, it all seems so long ago. It seems like he’s always been able to do whatever he does now. I completely agree. It seems like forever ago that James was so little that he could fit in the crook of my arm, or all curled up on my chest. Now he stretches down to my lap when I hold him sitting down, and I have to make sure to lift him up when I put him in the crib so his little feet don’t get caught between the crib and my stomach. When I walk around with him he sits on my arm, holding himself up and looking around. And yet he’s only 5 months old! He hasn’t even been around for half a year. It’s just crazy. I just scheduled his 6 month checkup for next month. I can’t believe he’ll be 6 months already…time really does fly.

I wonder if my mom feels that way about us; that it was just yesterday that we were little babies? Being a mom really gives me a much better perspective on how parents feel about their kids. I never could have imagined it…it is so hard to describe. Someone I read once said that having kids feels like a little piece of your heart out walking around. I feel more like James has a string or tentacle or something attached to my heart. Like where ever he is, we are connected, and he can tug at it whenever he needs something. When he’s upset, it’s tight and tense. When he’s happy it’s relaxed, with lots of give. I don’t know how else to describe the feeling.

I didn’t know how much I would love being a mother when I was pregnant. I thought I would like it, and I knew I would love my baby. But I had no idea how much I would love him, or how much I would love being a mom. Or how much I would love watching Ryan as a dad. He’s awesome, and James adores him. The grins for Daddy; they kill me.

Anyway, I know all that has been said by other people, and much more elegantly than I could ever say it. But part of having this blog is being able to look back and see how I felt at certain times of my life, and that is how I feel now. Constantly connected to this other little person, who amazes me more and more every day.

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Daycare update:

We found a new daycare. I love her. It is the place that we were going to take James temporarily while we found something permanent (she usually just does drop-in care), but she said she’d be willing to try out a permanent spot. So we are trying it out. So far, so good. She does cloth diapering too, and is about our age. She went to school and knows some good friends of ours, and came pretty highly recommended. The only downside is that it now takes us about 40 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes after work to do drop-off/pick-up. Ick. That will improve, though, once all the road construction is finished.

We also got a letter about our old daycare, saying that the person’s license was suspended for 90 days due to “imminent harm” to the children. I don’t know if things were more serious than she lead us to believe, or if that’s just the wording the county always uses, or what. But I’m glad we are done with her.

She returned our money, which is great. She returned most of our bottles (there are a few parts missing), but as Ryan pointed out when I started to get angry about it – it’s not worth it. It’s not worth the effort to try to call her and figure out where things are and pick them up. Talking to her makes me so frustrated (she wants us to feel sorry for her! ACK!), and so it is worth whatever small cost it will be to get replacement parts for the bottles just to be done with it.

Speaking of done with it; it’s time for me to be done with the internet for tonight.

Testing out the new Wordpress app for android.
The pic is James after the parade we were at this past weekend. It wore him right out!

Some random thoughts

A bunch of tall ships are coming to town at the end of this month. All summer I thought they were coming at the end of August, when we’ll be out of town for my sister’s wedding. As a friend pointed out, if I have to be wrong at least it’s something I WANT to be wrong about. Some friends who are moving back to MN right around that time are going to be coming up to see the ships, so we’ll get to see them too. Awesome!

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I just saw a headline in the local paper saying that they are going to have a hunting season for Sandhill Cranes this year. Um…ok. They are pretty birds to watch, but what do you do with them? Will this be just trophy hunting? Will people eat them? I’m not a fan of trophy hunting, but I can’t imagine that they would be good to eat. Maybe I’m wrong.

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Ryan and I have been dealing with some drama surrounding our daycare. Short version: a neighbor called the police because there was an “unattended child” outside the yard of our daycare. The daycare lady says the kid wasn’t out long and the parents didn’t think a report needed to be filed, but I think the police have to do one anyway. The county is investigating and might temporarily suspend her license while they do so. She doesn’t want to deal with that, so is going back to school to pursue a different career, and her last day will be Friday (that doesn’t make sense to me either). Also she’s taking today (Tuesday) as a personal day (apparently it couldn’t wait till next week). And we found all this out on Sunday afternoon while we were out of town. I took yesterday off to try to start the search for a new place (based on recommendations from people I know rather than just trying to guess this time), and Ryan has today off. I think we’ll start the new place tomorrow, even though technically we could probably bring him back to the old place. But who knows about this possible suspension (no one could tell us how likely it is to happen), and we just don’t want to deal with it any more. We think we’ve found a new place, and I really like the guys that run it. The only down side is that it’s about a 20 minute drive one-way. Usually going to work takes us about 7 minutes. I’m not looking forward to that. Ryan is calling a couple other places today to check them out because they were closer, but we are thinking we’ll go with the further away place. I keep telling him to win the lottery so that I don’t have to work, but so far that’s a no-go.

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Work has been crazy lately. We have had a lot of down-time with the computers or our management system and that’s created a backlog. I’m also struggling with whether or not to talk to my boss about how the person who is supposed to be assisting our department is really only assisting one person. I know I need to do it (it’ll be obvious when I bring him some stuff that should have been done a while ago), but I don’t like getting other people in trouble. On the other hand, he’s been saying for years that she should be providing more help for us, but the amount actually seems to be less every year. So yah…fun.

That’s all I’ve got.

:Edited to add:

I called our current daycare lady this afternoon because the places Ryan was trying to get ahold of hadn’t called him back yet, and we didn’t want to start a new place if we were going to switch right away. The daycare lady says, “OK. Is it ok if you pick him up a little early?” I’m thinking she means like 3:30 or 4. “Because I have an appointment at 1:30 and I need to leave by 1.” Oh.My.God. You are kidding, right? Ryan called a drop in center that was recommended to us, and we will be bringing James there until we figure something else out.

Also, I edited the first sentence of the first paragraph because it was very poorly worded.

I was at some sort of event with Ryan. It kind of felt like a high school gymnasium, but I’m not sure. There was a panel of people on stage (my high school had a stage in the gym) and they were asking them questions. Ryan wanted me to hold the microphone, so I was on stage and he was in the audience. We were all dressed up.

They then had me come down off the stage, and the panel left and there were all these couples, some of which I knew from high school. They were sitting on the edge of the stage, and Ryan and I were sitting to the side down by the front (not where he had been sitting before). They randomly chose someone to come be the MC, and it was a blogger that I read (Temerity Jane- who I do not know other than reading her blog). She went up there, and didn’t seem to know what she was doing, and then music started, and she was singing a song about the show. It was obvious that it was all part of the act – she DID know what she was doing. She was wearing some leotard with a skirt thing (like a swimsuit with a ruffle), and had green underwear showing underneath it when she bent over to flash it during the show. She ripped off the swim suit thing and showed us the joke underwear, but she was wearing more clothes underneath-like military camo pants and a t-shirt. I don’t know how that worked, but it did. She started doing a bunch of pushups. It was very impressive. Then she walked over, and grabbed the arm of a huge guy coming on stage.  then I woke up.

Talk about wierd. I don’t even know what to say about this one. It’s much less clear than the dream I had the other night where I was putting on high heels to wear with a bridesmaid dress while I went to work, and was complaining to Ryan about how they were too tight. And then I told him that they were going to be changing shoe sizes so that men’s and women’s shoes were the same size. But I was upset because, ” We can’t afford to buy all new shoes!” Um…because apparently in my dream we couldn’t continue wearing the shoes that did fit because they weren’t the “right size???”

What dreams have you had lately?

It is Friday, and this is a long weekend. I’m so ready for it I can’t even tell you. Work has been good, but busy and stressful. And I’m ready to get out there and enjoy some sunshine. Plus, we are going down to see Ryan’s family, and some of his aunts and uncles haven’t met James yet. I love introducing him to new people.

Speaking of James; Ryan and I are so so lucky. He’s such a good baby – almost always happy. And even when he’s “fussy” he’s not bad – he doesn’t scream and wail, he just gets grunty and whiney. And he sleeps so well. He slept entirely through the night again last night, and when he woke up this morning he was content to just lay in his crib and talk and smile at us while we got things ready before we picked him up. He makes my heart melt. That’s such a cliche, but it’s so true. I love that little guy.

And for your viewing pleasure; pictures from the birthday party last weekend. All photos were taken by my friend Adrienne.

Who are you? Can I eat your face?

Buddies! My friend Sarah's sweetheart. These cuties are just 5 weeks apart (James is older).

Friends and babies! A one-year old (the birthday girl), a 3 month old, and my 4 month old.

The boys! (The two on the left are brothers)

HAAA! I love to smile with my mouth wide open!!

So basically, it was a fabulous time (and HOLY COW were the decorations awesome!). I had so much fun visiting with my friends and seeing their kids. Now just to figure out how to do that on a more regular basis!

Happy 4th of July, folks!

I think I heard on the radio yesterday that we have had a total of 5 days in June without measurable precipitation. That is sad. It also has been making it hard to get our walking in. The past few days we haven’t been able to go. The first day we got a few blocks away and it started raining so we turned around; then the last few days there have been severe weather alerts that have made us afraid to get stuck out somewhere when it starts hailing. It hasn’t hailed yet, but it has rained pretty heavy every day. Like I said; not conducive to walking. So that sucks.

Work is stressful. Summer is traditionally our busiest time of year. Usually we try to get ahead in the spring so that we don’t fall behind during the summer. This spring I was out on maternity leave, a coworker severly broke her ankle, causing her to be out for a month, and another coworker got pretty severly sick, so she was out for 2 weeks. Combined with your normal vacations and such, that means that this summer has been pretty hecktic. And then you can add in that we switched our customer management system, which left us with a month of “down time” and has been a headache and a half trying to get it up and running properly, and now we switched some other computer stuff that caused another few days of down time…well, I’m sure you can see where this is going. We are swamped and behind (although not as bad as we could be) and everyone is stressed trying to figure out all the details of our new system. So yah…a little twitchy. Theoretically it should be getting better soon, but they’ve been saying that since before I went on leave, so we’ll see what happens.

In non-twitchy news, James and I are going to a 1 year birthday tomorrow, and I am so excited. Several friends that I haven’t seen since before James was born will be there, one of whom has a new baby. There will be babies everywhere! Or not. But kind of. hehehe. Anyway, I will try to get a picture of all the kids together and permission to post it on the interwebs. That’s a lot to remember, though, so no promises. Ryan jokingly suggested that we hire a personal assistant for me because I have completely lost my mind. It’s so true. I can’t remember anything. I’ve been assured that this comes and goes, so there might be a time later when I can remember what happened yesterday and whether or not I’ve eaten or taken a shower today. Amazing how you just take that kind of thing for granted; knowing whether or not you’ve showered.

And on that note, I will get back to work.

I found a link to this site that will try to predict the baby’s size/gender/hair color/etc. It asked me a bunch of weird questions (What’s the last animal I saw? How many rings do I wear? Do I paint my toes and fingernails?). And if it’s right I’m in big trouble. Not only because we are planning for the baby to be the wrong sex (and his name doesn’t work very well for a girl), but also because he’s (she’s??) apparently a monster baby. Here’s what it says:

The day you deliver, outside will be cold. Your baby will arrive in the early morning. After a labor lasting approximately 15 hours, your child, a girl, will be born. Your baby will weigh about 15 pounds, 6 ounces, and will be 22-1/2 inches long. This child will have light violet eyes and curly black hair.

Oh, and considering Ryan is fair-haired and I was blond when I was little and have darkish brown hair now I find it hard to believe our child will have black hair. But this came from the internet, and the internet never lies, right? Anyway, I thought I should give you all the information just in case anyone wants to change their guess. And if you haven’t guessed you can still do so – right up until the baby comes.

In other pregnancy news, there isn’t really any. I think I’ve finally hit the point where I am pretty much ready to be done, although I’m definitely willing to wait as long as necessary (unlike the girl on the forum I read who was asking how to break her own water. Um, WHAT? Yikes…). My back is sore, I can’t sleep or turn over in bed without major issues any more, it’s getting harder and harder for me to get out of chairs/the couch/any seated position, and putting on my socks is becoming such an ordeal that I’ve considered going barefoot. In February in Minnesota. But, all that being said I know I still have it pretty good. My back pain/trouble sleeping is nothing compared to a lot of people, and the rest is mostly just inconvenience. I’ll be ok. I’ll just be very excited to have it all over with at some point.

Well, maybe “problem fixed” would be more accurate.  All is well in Totally Serial blog land again.

In other news, what is the deal with the Twins’ pitching?  Having a 10-0 lead is no excuse for giving up 7 runs and having the tying run at bat.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Twins, but if by some miracle they end up winning their division, how are they supposed to go up against the likes of the Yankees in the play-offs if they can’t help but give up 7 runs to the Royals?